Phaedrus

Thansk, @Liza! Great to hear from a very rare perspective!

Okay, you beat me to it, but only because I got sidetracked reading her wikipedia page while looking for a photo! The other issue she had was that being Austrian and Jewish in the 30s was... troublesome, for obvious reasons, and her work was badly derailed by having to flee to Sweden in 1938. So I'll give a shout-out to Jocelyn Bell: she discovered the first known pulsar, but the Nobel went to her (male, needless to say) supervisor.

Oh, hell. Please don't do this, people. You can cause severe damage. I used to have a friend who worked in ER and she said it was amazing how many guys come in who had... er... been vacuuming while naked, and accidentally tripped and fell and landed with their penis in the nozzle... Gotta say, though, this thread got me thinking. Perhaps I should go shopping...

Great interview, @JuneStarr! Thanks for doing it! I have to say, I wonder how many folks are dealing with the judgementalism that they experienced in their formative years, and how many never recover from it and go on to harm their own kids with it. One thing I do have to take issue with, though... Nooo! Enough of the brevity! Give us more! :)

I had the pleasure of meeting Kitten recently. I had been wanting to for a bit, but... lockdowns. Booking was very easy and our conversation gave me a good idea of what kind of person she is before we met. The reality most definitely lived up to expectations! We had a lot of fun; Kitten is very responsive, and has some talents that people will definitely appreciate. And I think she has awesome taste in music, although YMMV on that one :) There was plenty of time for conversation too, and that was also great. I'll definitely be back to see her again before too long!

To be fair to Twitter... that makes sense. If you flag your account as being sensitive/adult-only content, nobody is going to see it unless they've opted in to seeing that sort of thing - and so you can post as much porn as you like. But your profile pic and banner get displayed to anyone who clicks on your name anywhere in Twitter, so they can be seen by anyone, and so that means they have to be more kid-friendly. The problem is that the enforcement of this is somewhat inconsistent and I think people sometimes get banhammered for banners that would be OK on an advertising billboard. But a lot of providers have been hit with this.

And is also owned/run by the same organization that runs this site, I think :) Nevertheless, it seems to be where a lot of folk advertise. The other place to bear in mind is Twitter, if you aren't there already.

Only just read this, as I've been offline for a bit. Great interview, Alexis - thanks for doing it! To chip in on @Sharpe's question: I think Alexis and Sam Gaines are talking about similar things when it comes to the connection with regular clients, but I got the impression from Sam that it's very much his approach and what he's aiming at all the time, whereas with Alexis it's more of a "it's good when it happens" sort of thing. This may also be related to the fact that she's working in a spa, which is more of a 'drop in for a bit' kind of environment; not sure how everyone else works, but I tend to plan ahead more when seeing indy providers than when visiting a spa.

Today... @Jenesis, in the hope that one day she visits Ottawa...

I'd like to nominate @Kitten - she's a really positive presence around here!

Thanks for dropping in, @SamGaines! If you're up for fielding more questions, one that Lydia didn't ask: I'm aware that most escorts seem to spend a huge amount of time dealing with time-wasters, tire-kickers, trolls, and all sorts of other undesirables that pollute their inboxes, DMs, etc. Do you get the same? And to the same extent?

Another really interesting interview! I must admit, I had a similar reaction as Sharpe to the bits he called out, and for the same reasons. It strikes me as being similar to hearing something like, "All men just want a skinny 20-year-old blonde with big tits" coming from a provider who happens to fit that description. It may well be true to some extent - I daresay some guys really do just want that, and most of the rest of us wouldn't turn her down - but it's far from being the end of the conversation and a true picture would be rather more... complex. I should say, I don't intend that comment to put Sam down at all - he has clearly figured out how to market the stuff he's good at and build a successful business in a field where it seems to be very difficult to get any kind of traction at all.

There's a government petition on decriminalization: https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Sign/e-3132 If you care about sex workers and you're a Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident, please sign it!

Same. Just checked, and they still haven't. So I think that's probably a waste of time, alas.

Sure, sign me up. Although I'd suggest that you get someone to automate this because doing it by hand will get really tedious, really fast...

I don't put any clothes back on. Towel or not... is a bit random for me. It depends on things like the mood, how far it is from the bathroom to the bedroom, whether or not the SP I'm seeing joined me in there...

Thanks, @Ninja83! And Lydia, of course. Another great interview and a really good insight into a part of the industry that really doesn't get talked about much at all.

Yeah, it's almost impossible to get stuff removed. It's very expensive to do anything at all and even then there's not a lot that can be done unless it's obvious that laws have been broken. When you're dealing with harassment and abuse it seems you generally have to find out who's doing it and go after them rather than going after the websites. If you want an in-depth take on it (but nothing to do with sex work) - have a look at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/30/technology/change-my-google-results.html. It's pretty horrifying how much damage one shitposter can do to many people's lives.

FWIW it's at https://lips.social/. I've just signed up (I'm Phaedrus there too). Although it appears that there's an approval process, so we'll see what happens with that... According to their FAQ they do have an app but you have to go to their site to get it as they don't want to be at the mercy of Google/Apple, who may decide they don't like all the sex or something.

Thanks, Alison! Great to get your perspective on this. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next decade...

Is that automatic? It used to be... but then, so did getting out of "new member" status after you had 5. It strikes me as the sort of thing that could have gotten broken at the same time, but I haven't been watching...

The problem is that moderation becomes impossible at the scale of the big social media platforms. Automated systems don't work that well and getting humans to do it costs far too much money. Maybe if it were a paid service... but who's going to pay for these things now that we're all accustomed to having them for free (or at least, for a non-obvious price)? I'm glad someone likes the section 230 stuff... it's important, but rather dry for most folks' taste!

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! What amazes me about this stuff is how fast things change these days. I wrote that lot the weekend after New Year; since then, we've had the riots in DC and this stuff has really come to the fore. I wish I'd talked more about the power of corporations; in the last week we've seen the Most Powerful Man In The World (supposedly) deplatformed and booted off social media, and we've seen an entire social media platform removed from the web entirely. I can't say I'll miss either Trump or Parler, but it's a vivid illustration of where the true power lies these days. And the likes of Zuckerberg, Dorsey, Pichai and Bezos are accountable to... nobody, as far as I can tell. And something new on the section 230 stuff: an interesting lawsuit in BC. I have no idea how it will go, but if we end up in a situation where the social media giants are liable in Canada for what people post... either they could end up pulling out of Canada to avoid liability, or inflicting on Canadian courts a painful and humiliating lesson about who's really in charge if they simply decide to ignore what a judge in Vancouver has to say.

You'd be better off posting this in the appropriate City-specific discussion forum. Someone on the other side of the country probably won't be a lot of help to you.

On the main page, if you scroll down, you'll find links to the recommendation and discussion forums for each city. They're organized by province. Look there.